I don't understand the appeal of watching sports

[scratch123]

When you compare watching sports to watching something like a movie or tv show nothing happens in them. For example in football there is a few seconds of action followed by a long wait in between plays. I don't understand how people can watch sports for hours without being bored.

[TimelordSimone]

'Sports' is really vague. I don't generally enjoy watching football (by which I mean soccer), but I enjoy watching Wimbledon (tennis) every Summer.

'Movies' and 'TV shows' are both kind of vague as well though. I don't understand the appeal of mindless action films or property auction shows, but they both seem wildly popular too.

[rigwarl]

On the contrary, nothing actually happens in most movies/TV shows. ITS NOT REAL!

[JBJ]

What is the deal with airline food? And why do they have Braille on drive-up ATMs?

[pseudoidiot]

ITT: people of the world have varying interests.

[Belial]

On the contrary, nothing actually happens in most movies/TV shows. ITS NOT REAL!

I've never quite understood this one. Does the "reality" of what's happening in a sports broadcast impact you in any way? I mean, unless you're there doing it, how does knowing it's actually happening somewhere make a boring thing entertaining, or how does knowing it didn't happen make an entertaining thing boring?

[Microscopic cog]

Nevermind.

[rigwarl]

Hmm, if you compare seeing an earthquake kill a hundred people in another continent on the news or in a movie, most people feel differently in the first scenario*. I think sports, while obviously a lesser extreme, is similar in that you can connect with the emotions of real fans, players, etc. For those who don't think watching reality/fiction on TV is a big deal, does it make a difference if someone you personally know is playing?

*Personally I'm a bit weird in that I really don't care about things that don't affect me (so the earthquake on the news for example would not make me feel a thing).

[SecondTalon]

Nevermind.

Aww.. and I was all ready to rebut (hehehehe.. re butt.) your arguments, and I hit quote and just see "Nevermind"

I has a sad now.

[Microscopic cog]

Nevermind.

Aww.. and I was all ready to rebut (hehehehe.. re butt.) your arguments, and I hit quote and just see "Nevermind"

I has a sad now.

I'm sorry, I just kept thinking it over and over and over and it kept making less sense every time so I edited it.

Edit: Al though Rigwarl's post made me feel better.

[Izawwlgood]

Mirror neurons. That is all.

[philsov]

There's always the tertiary function of being sociable. I don't care for sports, but friends do, and so I can go to the game and cheer for the team because that is fun while the game itself is not. Also for what it's worth being IN the stadium is a lot different than sitting at home, alone, watching the game, is a lot different than having a group of people over to watch said game as well.

I think checking out a leg of the Tour de France would be a great excuse to go to France and spending a few days on the countryside.

[Webzter]

When you compare watching sports to watching something like a movie or tv show nothing happens in them.

Someone's never watched a Hurling match.

[rigwarl]

I'm sorry, I just kept thinking it over and over and over and it kept making less sense every time so I edited it.

Edit: Al though Rigwarl's post made me feel better.

Heh, I actually edited out a response to you and while I didn't agree with the conclusion, I think it was good overall. For example, if you're an ice skater practicing a triple Lutz and you see a guy in a movie do a quad Lutz, you might just be like, whatever, computer-enhanced, the stuntman didn't ACTUALLY do a quad Lutz. But if you saw Mroz do it a few months ago in September 2011, you might very well get some motivation from that (if he can do a quad, I can do a triple!)

[AvatarIII]

There's always the tertiary function of being sociable. I don't care for sports, but friends do, and so I can go to the game and cheer for the team because that is fun while the game itself is not. Also for what it's worth being IN the stadium is a lot different than sitting at home, alone, watching the game, is a lot different than having a group of people over to watch said game as well.

I think checking out a leg of the Tour de France would be a great excuse to go to France and spending a few days on the countryside.

I tried doing that when I was about 10, I tried supporting a team, getting sticker albums and stuff, but by the time I was 11 I had decided, I did not want the kind of friends who live for sport, I had nothing to talk to them about.
Obviously adults have more in their lives and can have different friendship groups and stuff, I have a few friends that like sport, which I wasn't hugely aware of until they all got jobs at a bookies, and sport became important again, but they know I don't care and they don't bore me with it, we have plenty of other common interests, in music and television and movies etc, that sport is not required as an excuse for socialising.

[Endless Mike]

So don't watch it.

[Jesse]

I love the tension of sports, and the surprising nature of them. I watch a fuckton of sports and love them all (Ones I watch the most of are Starcraft 2, Football, Rugby, Cricket & Basketball). I love how people can turn things around at the last second, that unreal feeling as a team that are 0 - 3 down end up winning 4 - 3; or that feeling where someone does something so completely unexpected in Starcraft 2, that you've never even thought of before and it just straight up blows your mind so hard you can't get to sleep.

I totally understand people not enjoying those things, but it's one of my favourite things in the world.

[Faithful]

Sports bring about a drama in so much as it being unscripted, unabridged and action packed.

For example, the Women's World Cup. USA v Brazil - you can't make that shit up. Same with the Giants v Patriots Super Bowl 4 years ago. Or the TLO v Violet (?) TvT match in SC2 way back when. The drama is not scripted by a writer, seen in its fullest (IE - no damn cliff hangers) and you can be social during the events.

In my honest opinion, it beats the crap out of dramas on tv and in movies because you can almost always guess what is going to happen...or it is a cliffhanger. Not so in sports.

[Izawwlgood]

By that metric, you could be following current events and find as much entertainment.

Sports are like any other game; some people will find it interesting, others won't. I wager some people here would find a football game boring, but be more than happy to watch a Mt:G or Chess game; that's fine in any direction, but being close minded to what other people find interesting is lame as lame can be.

[Kewangji]

Some people just like to have a classy way of knowing what the time is, you know.

[Faithful]

By that metric, you could be following current events and find as much entertainment.

Sports are like any other game; some people will find it interesting, others won't. I wager some people here would find a football game boring, but be more than happy to watch a Mt:G or Chess game; that's fine in any direction, but being close minded to what other people find interesting is lame as lame can be.

Chess and Mt:G - I consider those sports as they have competition between two, or more, sides.

Most news stories are written to include public opinions on things so they get a higher viewership. You do not see a soccer team giving up a goal because it would make the story more interesting, do you?

[Izawwlgood]

Well wait; if you are saying that sporting events are never fixed, then I think you're... uninformed.
If you're saying that competition between parties is what makes these things (ALL of them) interesting, then yes, fine, again, my point is that some people find some competitions interesting, while others find other competitions interesting.

[OBrien]

I've recently discovered that I'm one of those people who won't go out of their way to watch any particular sport* but I really quite enjoy watching sports when other people put them on and I've had all the rules explained to me**. It's really interesting to watch the various strategies and tactics used, the skills involved and even watching the psychological warfare certain teams and players seem to play (winning teams putting pressure on losing teams to try riskier and riskier tactics, or even seeing certain players just lose it and watch their game suffering from a seeming inevitable defeat). I do, however, appreciate that not everyone will be interested in that, in the same way that I'm not interested in the various character's developments and interactions in soap operas.
tl;dr: I like watching sports, but it takes all sorts really.

*Except Olympic events, Football World Cup and European Cup matches, Rugby World Cup and Six Nations matches and Commonwealth judo matches where either England or France are involved.

**Except American football and cricket.

[yurell]

My favourite sport is Starcraft 2. I love watching the professional games and play at an amateur level myself. It's great fun to watch — it involves strategy, tactics, and hundreds of action per minute (far more than any football game!), as well as amazing concentration and far less chance of injury than physical sports.

[Garm]

American football is pretty dull, it's true. Oh, look, he fell forward and gained two yards. Not that impressive when you consider he's probably over six feet tall anyway.

I agree with what other people are saying. There's no drama like sports drama. I'll watch a movie and have an emotional reaction but it'll never match watching Brian Wilson burn that last strike past Cruz.

[Izawwlgood]

Far be it from me to defend American Football, as I recall reading somewhere that in the average hour+ game, the ball is actually only in play for ~12m, but one thing I can certainly get behind is the tactics involved. Football isn't a sport like every other sport, where you have a couple of dudes duking it out against a couple other dudes; Football is a fucking war. The head coach is the general; he commands offensive and defensive commanders, who are in charge of their own platoons. Each platoon has hundreds of plays it can be doing in response to goals or directives handed down from on high. What makes Football cool, even in my eyes, is the enormous production value.

Also, cheerleaders and halftime shows.

The last Football game I went to was a Bears game with my dad and brother (both very knowledgeable and avid sports fans), and it was, I only SLIGHTLY exaggerate, -20 out. We were wearing snowpants and ski gear, we drank hot chocolate spiked generously with whiskey, and my brother explained everything that was happening. It was a blast. A chilly, chilly, blast.

That said, I find Star Craft matches far more interesting. The gambits and responsive strategies are much more involved.

[Dark567]

Far be it from me to defend American Football, as I recall reading somewhere that in the average hour+ game, the ball is actually only in play for ~12m, but one thing I can certainly get behind is the tactics involved. Football isn't a sport like every other sport, where you have a couple of dudes duking it out against a couple other dudes; Football is a fucking war. The head coach is the general; he commands offensive and defensive commanders, who are in charge of their own platoons. Each platoon has hundreds of plays it can be doing in response to goals or directives handed down from on high. What makes Football cool, even in my eyes, is the enormous production value.

I am a little obsessed with football strategy. I mean all sports have some strategy, but football is a borderline chess match. Or war, as you say.

What makes Football cool, even in my eyes, is the enormous production value.

Little known fact: The NFL tries to poach Hollywood film editors to edit the highlights for leading in and out of the commercials. Which they put together in like 5 minutes. The NFL does an amazing job at making the game feel really dramatic.

[Menacing Spike]

Like many people here, I like watching SC2 matches. It's pretty interesting to see the current human limits of skill in this domain (especially since I can appreciate the complexity of what they are doing).

I don't understand the fascination for most physical sports, or for sport celebrities.

[SurgicalSteel]

(especially since I can appreciate the complexity of what they are doing).

I think this is a major factor. I hated watching football and hockey until I gained a better understanding of the games, and I could understand why they did such-and-such, or wonder why they did this instead of that. You likely won't see the drama in sports if you don't understand the rules and motivations behind the actions the players take, just like you likely wouldn't be affected by a horror movie if you didn't understand that getting stabbed by a knife hurts and could cause death.

[Dark567]

I mean, would SC2 be fun to watch if you didn't understand the mechanics of the game?

[SurgicalSteel]

I think SC2 would be fun to watch without an understanding for a little bit, because there are explosions and pretty graphics and sound effects and shit. But most sports, if you don't understand it it's just people running around with a ball. But I think even SC2 would be boring to watch after a bit without understanding it.

[Faithful]

I don't play SC2 anymore, at all. I still love watching it. It's a visual game with the complexities of chess / nfl football. I'm glad I don't really understand the current metagame...it makes the games interesting.

I would hate to be like "Well... Protoss went 12/12 gate so the Terran has to go XYZ to get ahead and the game will be over in 15 minutes"

I love the games you can just watch it and see how the armies build up and where the micromanagement takes over. Along with the macromanagement.

[Izawwlgood]

SC would be fun to watch in the same way that any sport would be fun to watch; oh cool, action! Just as I'm not going to understand the risks involved in selecting this defensive line up vs that defensive line up, someone unfamiliar with SC may not find any given strategy interesting either.
"Oh, so, now those other aliens are attacking the humans? cool, I guess"

[Noc]

SC has some pretty good commentators, too. I don't know how understandable it is to someone entirely unfamiliar with the game, but the good ones tend to do a good job of explaining what's going on and why it's important.

It really kind of makes me disappointed in sports coverage, when I have occasion to turn on the TV and catch some of it. I've been spoiled by folks like Day9 and Apollo and TotalBiscuit proving interesting, insightful commentary, so when I watch football and just see "Oh hey, here are some, uh, stats and numbers and crap. See, this guy who's throwing the ball now throws the ball fairly well generally I guess, and uh, his team is down a bit, but there's the other games where they've been down this far and come back to win. To accomplish that, what the team really needs to do is pull it together and score a bunch of points, and prevent the other team from doing the same."

It doesn't add anything to the game, and just results in me slowly getting frustrated and wishing someone would offer me some non-bullshit information. That play they're doing there! Why is it good, what are its particular risks, how is the other team set up to deal with it, etc etc: in short, why is this supposed to be compelling to me, and not just a bunch of people flailing around with a pigskin and falling over each other?

And it's not just about the nature of the games, because I get the same lackluster impression whenever I try to watch the generic MLG casters doing their thing.

[Edit: FOR EXAMPLE: Player A builds a Banshee, flies it at his opponents base.
Good Commentary: "This banshee seems like a good/bad decision, it's timed fairly well/rather poorly, has the potential to do a reasonable amount of economic damage and keep Player B pinned back in their base for the next minute or so, giving Player A an opportunity to safely etc etc etc."
Bad Commentary: *A pop-up on the screen displays the combat stats of a Banshee.* "So Player A has built a Banshee, that's a pretty powerful unit, Bob, as you can see it does 12 damage each with two attacks: a very powerful unit, but flimsy." "That's right, Ron. Lets see how much stuff it kills, and if it'll pay off for Player A."
"Oh, as we can see here, Player A has used the banshee in six of their last ten tournament games, and won four of those. So it seems to be a vaguely optimal choice, Bob." "Yes it is, Ron, but one of the losses was against Player B." ]

. . .

Also, to quibble, I dunno if I'd call football strategic. It's definitely tactical, but the game state mostly resets after each down, so -- at least as far as I understand it -- in-game decision making doesn't do a lot of changing from play to play to play, and neither team can plan ahead to any degree. The strategic element would instead be the teambuilding, which is why fans of the sport pay such attention to the players and their stats and why Fantasy Football is a thing.

Baseball is even more like this, being practically an RPG. And I think that's where fans get a lot of their narrative from: from the players and the teams' performance throughout the season, of which each individual game is a component. The game itself often isn't very interesting if you don't have that larger structure to provide context to its events.

[Weeks]

tl;dr stuff actually happens in sports, you just aren't aware of it/you don't find it interesting.

[Dark567]

Also, to quibble, I dunno if I'd call football strategic. It's definitely tactical, but the game state mostly resets after each down, so -- at least as far as I understand it -- in-game decision making doesn't do a lot of changing from play to play to play, and neither team can plan ahead to any degree.

Huh. Football is both. It has tactics like blocking assignments and routes, but it has strategy too, like its 4th and 1 with 3 minutes to go down by 4 points should I go for it or punt? Granted all the strategy is handled by the coaches, not the players(who really only do tactics), but there is still a lot of strategy to football, particularly in the end game.

[Noc]

Huh. Football is both. It has tactics like blocking assignments and routes, but it has strategy too, like its 4th and 1 with 3 minutes to go down by 4 points should I go for it or punt? Granted all the strategy is handled by the coaches, not the players(who really only do tactics), but there is still a lot of strategy to football, particularly in the end game.

I'd still call that tactics: presented with a situation, they have to make the best tactical decision to get the most out of that play. Circumstances of the game can definitely make the individual decisions more or less interesting: for the most part every play just tries to get the ball down the field as best as possible, but special circumstances can call for more specific and unusual decisions, and so on.

But there isn't a lot of room to play ahead: not a lot of "well, we'll do this thing THIS play, which will let us follow up with that NEXT play..." which is really what strategy tends to be about. Instead, the strategy (at least to my understanding) lies in the teambuilding: assembling and training a team to perform the tactics you think will be most effective. Trying to put together a team that can pull off a good running game, or a good passing game: that's where the strategist really has more control over the changing game state, as the composition and training of the team directly informs what your tactical decisions will be come game time.

(The individual players aren't the strategists, nor the tacticians: they're just game pieces.)

[Izawwlgood]

SC has some pretty good commentators, too. I don't know how understandable it is to someone entirely unfamiliar with the game, but the good ones tend to do a good job of explaining what's going on and why it's important.

You are describing something exactly parallel to sports commentators though. You even gave an example of what you defined as 'Good commentary' that to someone ignorant of SC, would still be exactly as helpful as any given bit of commentary in a sports game. "number 45 runs up the line and really seems to be pushing to stay away from number 12! man, they are neck and neck here, in this obvious winner take all dash for position!" is no more or less helpful to someone who doesn't know WHY this matters than 'Oh man, he's taking his banshee around back, if he makes it, he'll totally do some economic damage!'

tl;dr: knowledge of an activity deepens your enjoyment of that activity. This applies to everything.

[Adam H]

In general, sports can be fun to watch for a couple reasons. First, if you know the strategy/tactics/skills required, then you can appreciate the decision-making. Second, I know I spent way too long in high school staring at my TI-83 simulate coin flips, rooting for whichever coin was behind. There's something about competition that's compelling.

But there isn't a lot of room to play ahead: not a lot of "well, we'll do this thing THIS play, which will let us follow up with that NEXT play..." which is really what strategy tends to be about.

Hmmm apparently this isn't common knowledge: more often than not, coaches will call a certain play based on whether they want to "setup" a different play or take advantage of the previous plays. On offense AND defense. There's a whole lot of game theory going on.

[Wiskie]

Conflict is always interesting to people--and thematically speaking, every sporting event is a miniature conflict nicely packaged and "Ready-2-Watch." And in the same way we can get wrapped up in the road to glory taken by our favorite historical figure or a fictional character in a story or movie, we can get excited about "our team(s)" because we identify with them. When the local team's captain says he wants to thank the deliberately vague "fans"--he's talking about us!

It has always been said that sports are a surrogate for war, and I don't know how you can look back at the history of sports (both extant and ancient) and say that they aren't. Competition is indeed an element (maybe "the element") inherent in both sports and warfare, and strategy, tactics etc. play an obvious role.

It's really confusing to me that the stereotypical fantasy-sports-playing, draft-observing, trash-talking sports fanatic and the stereotypical stay-up-on-the-weekends gamer don't get along better. They have quite a bit in common.

PS: Forget the Superbowl. I wish both teams could lose. The big game of the weekend will be #3 OSU @ #20 Wisconsin in basketball. We better win because OSU is a bunch of cheaters and we've already lost too many home games this season...